I was gonna do a gif-by-gif breakdown of my reactions to this episode, but I decided that only one GIF summed it up:
That may have been Arrow's finest hour, holy fuck. What a fantastic episode. It felt so much longer than 44 minutes, but in the best way humanly possible.
- Shado dying: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I didn't see that coming. Fuck, I was on the edge of tearing up. And then Slade cradling her body at the end with her blood all over his face. Yeesh.
- Present Day Slade Reveal: Holy fuck. HOOOOOOOOOOLY FUCK. I accidentally clicked on this thread, so I was actually spoiled hours ago, but when watching it, I completely forgot and was so absorbed by what was happening. And his monologue was so chilling. Holy shit.
- Blood dating Laurel (needed a gif for this one).
- Roy getting superpowers. Be interesting to see where they go with this. Guess he's gonna be a superpowered junkie? Also, LOL at Ollie's first aid at the start. "It's a long story."
- Barry was great in this episode. The final scene with him was actually fantastic. I was really nervous about them introducing superpowers, but I think they've got me convinced they can hack it. I loved how the scene played, with the particle accelerator (so, it wasn't just a red herring!), the lightning, the chemicals. So much potential with the Flash series now. I'm assuming that all the powers we'll see will be derived from the particle accelerator incident. It's a good way of introducing flashier powers, but keeping it grounded in a tech-oriented way. It's also a good way of confining all the superpowered villains in Central, while leaving the insane/criminal villains in Starling. So Flash will be basically the lone superpowered cop policing a city potentially drowning in dangerous, powered people. Potential.
- TOMMY OH MY GOD I KNEW IT. His appearance was so awesome. I really like that actor.
- Oliver kicking the shit out of Cyrus Gold. Fuck yeah, great moment. Fucking overdrive.
- Felt bad for Quentin. His entire unit got wiped out. It was cliched, but Blackthorne played that loss really well.
- Rat poison! They used rat poison to cure Ollie!
- Slade as a boss, that still blows me away. And Blood, working for Slade!? Damn. Man, Alejandros just straight up looks like a villain. It's those eyes.
- The mask. I'll admit... that was a great moment. Loved that the Flash crafted the Arrow's mask. It actually does look really good on Amell. I also liked that Oliver gave an actual good explanation for splattering paint on his eyes. That made sense.
- Shado
Ivo gonna die. The Slade/Shado thing seemed to happen fast, but I'll allow it. The writers are doing so excellent.
Now superpowers are officially in,right? NotTheGuy Am Cry
As long as the superpowers aren't hilariously overpowered god-tier powers, I will be okay, I think. I really did love how that final scene with Barry played out. The effects were excellent.
in DC comics lore, Starling City is supposed to be somewhere in the Pacfic Northwest and Central city in the midwest.
Wooooo Pacific Northwest represent!